After a Hawaii Storm, a Moment in the Sun: A Rural Area Will Cast a Close Race’s Last Votes

Damage to homes from Tropical Storm Iselle left thousands of people without power.Credit
Baron Sekiya for The New York Times

PUNA, Hawaii — Politics seldom intrudes on the easternmost district of the Big Island of Hawaii, a hard-to-reach paradise where the homes are nestled among lava-formed cliffs and the papaya and macadamia nut harvests loom larger than the machinations in Honolulu, let alone in Washington.

“Traditionally, Puna is the place time forgot,” said Dawn Hurwitz, 58, who has lived here for almost half of her life. “This is the Wild West.”

But nobody has forgotten about Puna this week.

Last week, the area was battered by Tropical Storm Iselle, which left thousands of people without power or running water. And while residents are focused on digging out after the storm, politicians, aides and television crews have swarmed in, well aware that voters here are poised to finally decide the long, bitter Senate primary race between the incumbent, Brian Schatz, and Representative Colleen Hanabusa.

Mr. Schatz leads by just 1,600 votes after Saturday’s Democratic election. But, with roads blocked by trees downed by the storm, two polling places here were closed.

So on Friday, a rare election has been scheduled that will allow about 7,000 voters from this district to cast ballots that could decide the race. But it is not clear if the voting will proceed: On Wednesday, Ms. Hanabusa asked a state circuit court on the Big Island to halt the election, arguing that many people either do not know about the vote or cannot get to the polls. A hearing was set for Thursday.

In the meantime, she has been ladling out chili to residents, and Mr. Schatz has distributed water and ice. Both candidates have a lot at stake: The victor in the primary will almost certainly win the general election. No Republican has been elected to the Senate in this state since 1970.

“It’s awesome — our moment in the sun,” said Elizabeth Robertson, a 60-year-old retiree who had gone to a community center in search of ice after it had sold out in minutes at the local stores. “Maybe it will help bring attention to how hard it is here, and get us a few more bits and pieces of services. A lot of us feel like we’re living in a third-world country, we really do.”

Photo

Representative Colleen Hanabusa, right, worked with supporters on Monday. Credit
Baron Sekiya for The New York Times

But the sudden focus on Puna has also highlighted the divide in Hawaii between the high-rises of Honolulu and the poorer, rural districts like this one on the outer islands, where residents have long felt neglected by the state’s politicians.

Once a haven for hippies (known as Punatics), Puna still draws people who want to escape big-city life. Off the single highway, pavement soon gives way to gravel roads, and cellphone service fades. Dreadlocks and marijuana smoke are easy to find on the street in Pahoa, the district’s commercial center. But Puna is the fastest-growing area of Hawaii, home to a diverse mix of native Hawaiians, papaya farmers, fishermen and people drawn here from other islands by the promise of more affordable land.

There are reasons that real estate prices have stayed low: There is no major hospital in the district. Ambulance companies will not always brave the gravel roads, residents said. And most homes get water from rainwater catchment systems, which stop working when the power goes down, as it did when the tropical storm hit last week. Mail is delivered to big groups of post office boxes on the side of the road.

And with the area’s growth has come a desire for more resources.

“This area continues to suffer from neglect,” said Russell Ruderman, who represents Puna in the State Senate. “I think we saw that in the last few days.”

His seat was created two years ago as a result of the booming population, which has more than doubled since 1990, according to the federal census. “Maybe this moment in the spotlight will be enough to get us a second road out of Puna, or some disaster prevention funding,” he said.

Before Mr. Schatz and Ms. Hanabusa flew here the day after the election last week — officially to help with the recovery effort, but also to stump for the final few votes — there had been little government help in the storm cleanup, residents said. Many took pride in the community’s self-sufficiency.

Kail Albert, a handyman who plans to support Ms. Hanabusa, said the lack of support in the hours after the storm had been frustrating, but not surprising.

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Senator Brian Schatz handed out bags of ice at a community center on Monday.Credit
Ian Lovett/The New York Times

“Usually it’s all about Oahu,” he said. “We’re like the last ones on the totem pole down here. We’re kind of like second-rate citizens.”

Mr. Albert spent the days after the storm working with neighbors to clear albizia trees, an invasive species that topples easily, which were blocking roads and had caused most of the damage.

“A lot of people were stopping and helping each other,” he said. “There was a lot of aloha out here.”

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If the election proceeds here on Friday, Ms. Hanabusa would have to win by a wide margin to overtake Mr. Schatz. That is no easy feat in an area where political interest has often been low and almost a third of residents live in poverty, according to census data.

Ms. Hanabusa filed for an injunction to allow more time to restore power so that more people could cast ballots. “This really comes down to people’s fundamental right to vote,” she said in an interview. “Some of the people in the hardest-hit areas, who were trapped in their homes last weekend, are not going to be allowed to vote.”

With many people still struggling to find basic necessities, both campaigns moved to try to fill the void.

Mr. Schatz set up operations at a community center here, where he handed bags of ice to residents through car windows. He said nothing about the election and did not speak to reporters.

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Fliers were set out at a food distribution center.Credit
Baron Sekiya for The New York Times

Some people did not recognize the senator, though Maave Enos, a volunteer who was helping to distribute the ice, occasionally shouted, “Remember, when you vote, you vote for him.”

Jolyn Ho, 40, who was also distributing ice, said she was undecided on whom she would vote for. Asked what could sway her, she said, “Maybe if he was here again tomorrow — and the day after that.”

Ms. Hanabusa was willing to campaign slightly more openly. She spent time giving out chili (which she helped make, a campaign spokesman said) and ice at a farmers market.

Her volunteers wore Hanabusa shirts, and some went house to house to tell people about the election.

“I have campaign people who are driving around with chain saws,” she said. “If they see driveways with trees that need to be cleared, they’re just going to jump out and do it.”

With miles of power lines down, even the effort to inform voters about the election was daunting. Along Makuu Drive, one of the hardest-hit roads, residents without access to television or the Internet had no idea that an election had been scheduled.

“It’s a little ironic,” Ms. Hurwitz, who has lived here for 26 years, said of the attention from the outside world. “For so many years, I’ve been witness to the lack of infrastructure and funding here.”

Ms. Hurwitz had come to a community center to charge her phone. She said she had not yet decided which candidate to support, but she clearly found humor in Puna’s sudden electoral muscle.

“We’re sitting in the catbird seat,” she said. “It’ll be very amusing to observe. I don’t have very high expectations.”

A version of this article appears in print on August 14, 2014, on Page A12 of the New York edition with the headline: After a Hawaii Storm, a Moment in the Sun: a Rural Area Will Cast a Close Race’s Last Votes. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe